Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Another casualty from the world of gay porn: I'm hearing Josh Weston died today of a heart attack, at the age of 39. My friend CC used to be chat buddies with the popular performer -- who was reportedly working on a memoir called "Sleeping My Way to the Bottom" -- and I will update with his thoughts later this evening.

UPDATE: My friend Christopher writes ...

Josh Weston or "Chad," which was his real name, was a kind and very intelligent man. He graduated from college, had a very impressive vocabulary, and wrote very insightful blogs on MySpace. I was lucky to be pen pals with him during a very difficult time in my life. He always wrote back to me and seemed to care about the hell I was going through. We spoke on the phone a few times back in 2006 when he was living in New York City. At that time he was still escorting but had left major studio porn. We never met and our last conversation on the phone had him packing up to move out west to join his sister on a business venture. He seemed ready to move on from the "adult performer" role and move into a different stage of life since he was now in his 30's. I was surprised when I saw him appear in bare back films shortly after. In these films, he appeared ill and not really with it. I did sense loneliness and depression in some of our conversations. This is something that I believe many of us gay men deal with on different levels from time to time. I can't say I knew him well, but I can say that he was kind, very sincere, very bright, and very beautiful. I tried numerous times to reach him via email and phone since 2006. It appeared that he "disappeared." I'm very sorry to hear about his passing and hope that he now finds peace.

He was one of my favorites during his time with falcon, I loved when he would dance at the nob hill theatre in SF when up an coming porn stars danced there on a daily/weekly basis...he is so mutch hotter in person and liked that he didn't want to be overly tan like other stars during his time, his body was amazing and it is sad that he is gone

No disrespect -- and may he rest in peace -- but... Like with the late Erik Rhodes, you have to wonder who is really to blame for senseless casualties like these.

If you take a look at Josh in his earlier films, say the one set in New Orleans (the title is escaping me), he is clearly a good looking, fit young man. Fast forward to the more recent years, he looks like a total Roid Head -- as did Erik before he passed.

I often compare this to the plethora of plastic surgery-seeking celebs... If Cher's original nose and teeth were good enough to land her a singing career, why did she feel the need to fix them? (I know, because she WANTED to.) If these guys are hot enough to get a job in gay porn, why do they feel the need to jack themselves up to such extremes? So gay guys like us can jack OFF while watching them, I'm afraid.

A sad, sad tragedy, the outcome of the life he chose- a life where 'hotness' is valued above all else. I really hope this serves as a cautionary tale. I have a young gay nephew. He and his friends don't buy into this hotness mentality, thank goodness. The comments about how 'hot he was, a great body, but a bit past it in the end, so sad' are from vapid, self obsessed gay men who have completely fucked up values systems. To the young I say, this is not a world that you NEED to move in. There are great men out there who value more than this. Make another choice.And you would be interested to read about how he viewed life? Are you kidding? He viewed his own life as being worth nothing more than his looks, which were never good enough for him. And no society did this to him. He made a value choice; he chose to believe that his looks were the only valuable thing he had, like so many young gay men. And maybe he didn't have anything else to offer another person. If so, that was also his fault. We can all choose to be better.

1) If the initial reports are correct of cardiac arrest are accurate, there is a growing body of evidence linking HIV with heart disease. See for example, "Heart Trouble Early and Often for HIV Patients," June 18, 2012

2) Manyh of the criticisms leveled against this man are incredibly cold if not downright sociopathic. Instead of criticizing our own community for how it tolerates adult performers to be serially used & discarded by lucrative studios which our own consumption makes possible it's easier to blame the victim here. California's gay community enables the production of BB pornography without even basic educational/public health disclosure requirements to help protect uninformed viewers (i.e. young gay males learning about their sexuality by watching porn). In 2012 fully 8 members of the California legislature were LGBT members including the powerful position of Assembly Speaker yet nothing was done to correct this neglect. No let's don Ayn Rand drag and assume this man from Sparks, NV had unlimited choices, "deserved it" and such an outcome should have no bearing on what we can do in the present.

A healthy community looks at the deaths of young male performers like Josh Weston and asks, "How can this be changed?" We know Josh Weston won't be the last adult performer to die this way until critical, difficult questions are asked. Something must give both in terms of how performers in "the industry" are treated while they're in it and more importantly when they leave it.

It can be difficult for a community often under attack as is the LGBT to open itself up to self-criticism but that is what is needed now.

Josh and the many, many others who have died in recent years seem to have one thing in common and that is the use of steroids. Steroids are more dangerous then party drugs and the combination of them is, when done long enough almost always lethal. I think guys like Josh and Erik Rhodes suffer from body an actual mental condition called body dysmorphia. This condition is much like anorexia, but in reverse. No matter how buff or muscular they get, these men see nothing but imperfection, they are never "big enough" "masculine enough". Go to any circuit party or IML etc., and you will see this crowd, they all hang together. Their steroid usage is obvious, these are also the party boys, the all night sex party guys in Palm Springs, SF, LA, Chicago, Miami, they never get "enough". Enough attention, sex, compliments, there is something missing inside that they are constantly trying to fill and for many they take their qwest right to the grave. It is so sad that these men who are so beautiful, so wanted and so lusted after are so twisted in the head that they can't really appreciate it or be happy with themselves. Read Erik Rhodes rambling posts in the last years of his life, they are very disturbing. I wish I had been born with the genetics that some of these guys have been blessed with, I would never take it for granted or be unhappy with it. Sad state of affairs.